Gallery Fumi presents Rubber Rocks by Study O Portable as mutable monuments

For their first solo exhibition with Gallery FUMI, London-based designer duo Bernadette Deddens and Tetsuo Mukai of the Study O Portable present Rubber Rocks, on view from May 15 – June 28, 2025. The show unveils a furniture design collection that appears at first glance to be hewn from granite, yet is composed of silicone rubber, marble dust and pigment. These are not solid stone relics, but hand-sculpted illusions: rubber erasers masquerading as architectural fragments. "In these trompe-l’œil sculptures, Study O Portable explores the tension between permanence and impermanence, transformation and erosion," notes Gallery FUMI in an official release.

Central to Study O Portable's practice is a thoughtful, often understated conceptual rigour. The conceit they employ is as playful as it is profound. Granite, ancient and elemental, anchors our imagination in ideas of permanence. It speaks of everything that is monumental—mountains and temples—everything that resists the tides of time. Rubber erasers, found on every architect's desk, by contrast, are fleeting, designed to vanish slowly through friction and correction. In Rubber Rocks, these opposites collide. The furniture designers stage a subtle alchemy, transforming the object of revision and refinement into an object that mimics the endurance of stone and, in doing so, interrogate the nature of what lasts.

The showcased collection includes stools, armchairs, coffee tables, consoles, planters, alongside a table and a bench. Each piece in the design exhibition is a study in contradiction: a seemingly weighty, decaying stone object that reveals, on closer inspection, a softness and tactility at odds with its appearance. Crafting these pieces begins with pigmenting the rubber to create colours that reflect the variations found in granite, before being granulated, mixed and cast in simple geometric shapes. The material is then meticulously hand-carved to evoke weathered architectural elements, such as arches and columns.

For the product designs, the Dutch designers drew inspiration from historical architectural references and media theory; from fragments of history, drawing from the visual language of ruins, monuments and classical decay. "It challenges perceptions of materiality – blurring the boundaries between solid and soft, weight and weightlessness, permanence and impermanence," says Gallery FUMI. "With the Mayfair gallery space at their disposal, Rubber Rocks presents an opportunity for Deddens and Mukai to create something entirely new while staying rooted in the conceptual foundations that define their work."

Study O Portable crafts objects not of endurance, but of reconsideration, and pieces in Rubber Rocks are a tribute to transformation—an ode to the beauty of things in flux.